A Better Thing
by coldfusion9797
Summary: Ever read that old time book, A Tale of Two Cities? Well this situation is nothing like that, except to say that Brock would do anything for the person he loves. Or... the one where Brock helps Steve liberate the Winter Soldier.


**AN: I put this thing together in a day and a half between working and binge-watching Chicago Justice. I dunno, these boys are talking to me, all I can do is listen. Hope it's okay...**

The thing about Steve Rogers is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. He's an all or nothing kinda guy, and no matter what Brock tells himself, he knows they aren't just fucking.

But emotion, affection, love of all goddamn things, comes with strings attached. Expectations of things like honesty and consideration.

It's inconvenient to say the fucking least when his allegiance lies with Hydra, the sworn enemy of the person he's in love with.

And the time has come when he has to make a decision. He can't keep playing both sides of the field, he has to jump one way or the other.

Hydra has given him a lot. A challenge, state of the art gear to work with, people at the top of their game too. Not to mention a pretty decent pay check, security and a purpose.

In the end the decision is pretty simple. Does he want to give Cap up? No, he doesn't, which means Hydra just became his enemy too.

First things first though, he's gotta clue Cap in. He doesn't know if sitting at the breakfast table is a good time to confess, but then, there's not really such a thing as a good time to shatter someone's world.

This is something that has the potential to go horribly fucking wrong. Cap might lash out, go running off half-cocked to deal with the problem alone, or he might hate him, and then Brock will be fucked, surrounded by hostiles on all sides. All he can do is man up, spill and hope to Christ that love really does conquer all.

"You know I love you, right?"

Steve looks up, suspicion already creeping in. Damn it.

"What did you do?"

Fuck. He wants to defend himself, but he can't, all he can do is tell the truth.

"Promise you'll listen. Hear me out first, then decide what you're gonna do."

Steve catches on pretty quick that he's being serious, sits the kettle down and comes over, crouching down in front of him on the kitchen floor.

"You know I love you too, right? Whatever it is, we'll sort it out together."

He looks so sincere when he says it, so damn determined to do right by him. God he hopes that resolve sticks.

Brock reaches out, presses his palm to Steve's cheek.

"That's what I'm hoping."

Steve just keeps those pretty blue eyes fixed on him, waiting for him to talk. Unknowingly asking for his world to be turned upside down.

Brock let's out a breath, how does he say this?

"This ain't easy to say and you're not gonna like it so I'm just gonna spit it out. SHIELD isn't what you think it is, and neither is Pierce. I work for him, not Fury, Pierce is a head of Hydra."

At first it's disbelief that plays across Cap's face, like maybe this is some kinda sick joke, but when Brock doesn't laugh, just keeps staring at him, he starts to get it.

"I... You're serious?"

"Yes."

"Are you saying you're Hydra?"

"Yes. All the STRIKE team are. A lot of other SHIELD agents too."

"How?" Steve says, more to himself than to Brock. He gets up, starts to pace, Brock needs him to stay calm at least until he finishes explaining. "I stopped Schmidt. I sacrificed everything to do it..."

Brock gets up, goes to him, reaches out, touches his arm. Steve stops and looks into his eyes. Looking for answers, desperate to understand and make sense of this.

"I know you did," Brock offers. "And," he continues, because he can't stop now, "that ain't the worst of it. Your friend Barnes, the one from Brooklyn. He's alive."

"What?" Steve chokes out, the colour draining out of his face. Brock hates doing this to him, but he has to know. How else are they gonna fix it if Cap don't have all the facts?

"When he fell off that train, Hydra found him. Brainwashed him, stuck him in cryo. He's a weapon, their best one."

"Bucky..." Steve whispers, knees giving way. Brock slides to the ground with him, wraps his arms around him.

"I know it's a lot to take in and I'm sorry, but you had to know."

"Why are you telling me this?" Steve says, heat beginning to creep into his voice, obviously the first part of the conversation is starting to sink in. That Brock is the enemy.

"I shouldn't be, they'll want to kill me now, but like I said, I love you. Nothing matters more than that."

"You lied to me," Steve accuses.

"I lied to a stranger. I'm telling you the truth. Your pal needs help. I want to help you help him. You need a man on the inside."

And there it is. All he can do now is wait for Steve to decide and hope that his love is reciprocated in equal measures.

"How bad is it?"

"About as bad as it gets."

Steve nods, biting his lip, determined to keep his emotions in check.

"I'm not saying it'll be easy, but together we stand a chance."

Steve looks him in the eye, pushes all feeling aside. Brock knows that look, its determination to get the job done.

"What do we do?"

xxx

"I told him," Brock says to Jack.

"Everything?"

"Yeah."

"How did he take it?"

"Better than I expected."

"Now what?"

"We make sure we're there when Barnes gets sent in. Then we help Cap pull him out."

"How?"

"Next mission, I gotta convince Pierce to let me handle him."

xxx

The mission order comes through, the target is Nick Fury.

"They're sending him in after Fury," Brock tells Steve. "You gotta know, he'll be different than you remember. He's ruthless, and he won't recognise you. They wipe his memory every time they thaw him out."

Steve just stares at him, obviously terrified to react. Brock understands that letting any emotion through could open the flood gates, and emotion can't factor into this, not if they wanna get the job done.

"Why Bucky?"

A fair question and the final piece of the puzzle.

"He's a super soldier like you. Almost. He lost an arm in the fall, they replaced it with a cybernetic one."

But there's only so much emotion a person can hold back, and the tears fall.

Steve turns away, tries to hide it, but he doesn't have to. Brock's not saying he'd cry over it, but he knows he'd be gutted if anything ever happened to Jack.

He reaches out, lays a hand on Steve's shoulder.

Steve sniffs, wipes his face and turns back to face him. His cheeks are still damp, and Brock hates seeing him suffer like this.

"I haven't cried since the day I lost him," Steve admits.

"It's okay," Brock tells him, for lack of anything else to say.

Steve's just standing there, looking kinda lost and Brock knows he sucks at this talking thing when it matters. Fuck it, actions speak louder than words.

He pulls Steve into a hug, lets them both have some comfort before shit gets very real and they take this huge risk. If they lose, they die. If they win, they'll have both sides gunning for them. The thought he almost thinks, is before they pass the point of no return, but in reality, he knows they're long past that already.

xxx

What the fuck is he doing? Helping out the competition. He might be crazier than Barnes. Really though, Cap was gonna find out eventually when they sent Barnes after him, and that woulda been worse. To have known all along and not told. At least this way he can claim some moral middle ground.

Besides, Barnes is a basket case, Steve's gonna see that soon enough.

Barnes who is a blithering mess right now. The Winter Soldier is legend, but fresh out of cryo, he's mush. He's pretty too, no denying that. Brock's good looking, but he ain't pretty, and he just hopes Cap's lost his taste for pretty boys over the intervening decades.

"Where's Steve?" Barnes blubbers. "I just need to find Stevie. Please..."

Pierce looks thoroughly disgusted. No matter how many times they go through this, Barnes always begs for his friend. And no matter how many times Pierce tries to convince him that they are the good guys, it never sticks. Never means more to him than his precious Stevie.

Pierce backhands him across the face and demands that he pulls himself together. Brock doesn't know why he bothers, they all know he's gonna be totally useless until he's wiped.

"Please," Barnes begs, tears streaming down his face. "I just need to know where he is."

Pierce draws his hand back for another go.

"Don't bother," Brock intervenes, saving Barnes from another cheap shot and shoving him back into the chair. That's an inevitability he can't help.

He can see that Pierce is rattled, they all are a bit, this is the moment that Hydra will come out of the shadows, a place they've safely lurked for more than fifty years. They're counting on the fact that once Project Insight goes live, people will be looking for leadership, and that providing it competently will ease the transition.

"Let me take the reins on this one," he offers. "Free you up for the PR side of things."

"You speak Russian?"

"Enough." He only needs to know nine words.

"Fine," Pierce allows, relinquishing control. "I want Fury dead asap. We're on a schedule here."

"Copy that."

And he means to follow this order. With Fury dead, that's one less asshole they'll have on their tails. Because SHIELD isn't gonna let the Winter Soldier go, and there's no way in hell Cap will be handing his buddy Bucky over.

The plan is suicidal at worst and completely fucking crazy at best, but it's the only one they've got.

xxx

They're on a roof top opposite Cap's apartment. Barnes is like a bloodhound, following the mark relentlessly.

"Just the black guy, not the white guy. Hit the white guy and you'll be begging for the chair before I'm done with you."

Brock could've had a crack at taking the shot himself, but he's nowhere near the marksman that the Winter Soldier is, and he wants this know-it-all Fury fuck in a body bag pronto.

Barnes takes the shot and makes the kill.

xxx

"What the hell happened?" Steve wants to know. What happened was that Brock and Jack did the dirty work while Captain America got to keep his hands clean. He ain't complaining, someone has to be the practical one.

"Let's get outta here first," Brock says.

Jack's waiting with a car and they high tail it. Brock rides shotgun, Cap and Barnes sit in the back. That's when Cap finally lets himself look.

"Buck, it's me. Remember?"

Barnes just stares straight through him.

"I told you he wouldn't," Brock snaps, as they speed along the streets of Washington, heading for some safe house in the country that Jack sorted out.

"I know," Steve bites back. "I just..."

Brock wants to believe that it's just the high stakes of the situation making them tense, but deep down he knows this is how it begins.

Jack glances over at him, and yeah, Brock knows he's an idiot, he doesn't need Jack to tell him, but what the hell else was he supposed to do? Sit back and wait for the shit to hit the fan? That ain't his style.

"Buck, look at me. I'm Steve, you know me. You've known me your whole life..." And on it goes, met by nothing but silence and dead stares.

"How far?" Brock barks at Jack.

This shit is gonna drive him crazy.

xxx

"I told you it was bad."

"There must be something we can do."

"He's most like himself when they first pull him out."

"So maybe a cold shock would do it? We could put him in an ice bath."

"Only problem with that is that we're fresh out of ice."

"We could get some." Cap is actually serious.

"You want me to risk my neck for a couple of bags of ice?"

"Got any better ideas?"

As a matter of fact, he doesn't. Other than waiting and seeing, but he knows that ain't gonna fly.

"Fine."

The decision leaves him between a rock and a hard place too. He doesn't want to risk Steve getting caught, he also knows Steve's best equipped to watch Barnes, but he doesn't want to leave them alone together. His reason for that is obvious.

"Don't do anything to trigger him until I get back."

xxx

"You all good?" Jack asks as they drive into town.

"You don't need to be here," Brock points out. He'd have preferred Jack to hang back and help Cap keep watch.

Jack gives him a fed-up look.

"If they're onto us and shit goes south, I'm not about to leave you high and dry." It's true that they have been through a lot together.

"Okay."

Brock's happy to leave it there but Jack's a funny one, when he decides to care about something or someone, he cares a lot.

"You really gonna do this?"

"Do what?"

"Let him go."

"It is what it is," Brock shrugs. Of course he doesn't want to lose Cap, he loves him, but he ain't gonna go to pieces over it either. All he can do is give this to Cap and hope the gesture speaks for him.

xxx

They get him in the ice bath but it doesn't make a difference.

"You're being too gentle. He doesn't respond to that kind of treatment. Dunk him."

"What?"

"He's too strong for us to hold down, you're gonna have to do it."

"I don't wanna hurt him."

"That ain't Barnes, that's the Winter Soldier. Do you want your buddy back or not?"

Steve turns to the vegetable in the bathtub.

"Bucky, please don't make me do this. Try to remember, please just try."

All Barnes does is give him that blank look.

"Please," Steve begs, but it ain't no good. "You must remember something. What about this?" Then he's leaning in, pressing his mouth to the Winter Soldier's, and it tears Brock up. He fucking loves Steve, hates seeing him kiss another guy, but then, this _was_ his guy, and Brock knows how much they meant to each other. That's why he did this, for Steve, so he can't go getting his panties all in a bunch now when they've pulled it off.

He's not sure he has anything to worry about anyway, because it doesn't work. And he's sick of all the useless talking.

He surges forward, grabs Barnes' shoulders and shoves him down under the icy water. He won't be able to hold him there, but hopefully he can count on Cap to back him up.

"Come on," he urges. "Help me."

Barnes kicks and thrashes, gets his head back above water.

"Do you want your pal back or not?" he barks at Steve, using every ounce of strength he has. Suddenly Jack's there, wrangling Barnes legs, pulling them down, trying to get Barnes' head back under the water, but they are gonna lose this battle.

"Come on!" he shouts at Steve, they need him to get this done.

Finally he gives in, and helps Brock hold Barnes down, silent tears streaming down his face.

It feels like a long time before the fight starts to go out of the soldier.

"Make the call, Cap. You know how long a super soldier can hold his breath for."

Immediately, they let him up. Barnes sucks in a gasping breath, coughs a couple of times, and then his eyes land on Cap.

"Stevie?" he whimpers. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

In the blink of an eye, Steve's in the tub too, clutching Barnes to him, bawling like a baby.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry..."

It ain't exactly clear what he's apologising for. Everything, Brock thinks.

They cling to each other, unconcerned about the freezing water. It's ridiculous.

"Get out of there," Brock commands. "Before we gotta defrost both of you again."

They realise where they are, both climb outta the tub, and stand there sopping wet, looking like a couple of punk kids from Brooklyn waiting for their mothers to bring them a towel.

"Jesus Christ," Brock huffs. "We got any spare clothes around here, Jack?"

xxx

They get Barnes changed, and settle him in bed. He's okay, not great, seems to have the mental capacity of an eight-year-old at the moment. Maybe he'll get better, maybe he won't.

Brock claps a hand to Jack's shoulder.

"Hey man, can you watch him for a bit?"

"Yeah, of course."

"Thanks buddy."

He finds Steve, who quickly scrubs a hand across his face because he's crying again. He's been doing that a lot over the past few days, it was never Brock's intention.

"It's horrible," Steve says. "Feeling like you can't breathe."

"Look, I'm sorry alright. It had to be done."

"It's okay," he concedes because there ain't much else he can do.

"No, it isn't," Brock says, bringing it down a notch or two.

The tears well up again, and then Steve's arms are around him, and of course he reciprocates, wraps Steve up tight as he can, he never wanted him to hurt like this.

"Thank you," Steve breathes into his ear.

Brock gives Steve an extra squeeze before leaning back and looking at his face. He's so damn beautiful even with his eyes all puffy and nose all red from crying.

Brock doesn't know what to say, he sure ain't gonna beg Steve to choose him, the only thing he can think to do is show him, so he does.

He doesn't wanna give Steve too much time to think about it, so when he leans in to kiss him he takes it from zero to ten at the speed of sound.

He's seen shell shock before, and this is a little bit like that. Steve's vulnerable right now, and he's gonna use that, remind him that he's the one that can take care of him.

They land on a dusty bed, Steve pinned beneath him, and Brock's already hard, Steve underneath him will do that.

He keeps the kisses going, doesn't wanna give Steve a chance to say no, as he slides his hand into Cap's pants and slips a couple of fingers inside him.

He hooks them forward, finds the sweet spot, works it expertly, silently saying, _See? This is what I can do for you, this is how I can make you feel._

Steve's hands are gripping his back, he's gonna leave bruises.

He's trying to say something, moaning the words into Brock's mouth. What Brock hears is 'fuck me', and he can sure do that.

He's gotta pull their mouths apart for a sec, looks down at Steve's face which is flushed for a different reason now.

Brock pulls out his cock, slicks up with some spit, is pleased to see Steve shimmying his own pants down, they haven't fucked this quick or desperate in a while.

Brock pulls the pants right off, Steve pulls his knees up to offer himself.

Brock braces above him and buries himself deep.

He chases his completion like a man possessed, he has to stake his claim here. Steve's staring up at him, the strangest look on his face, it's something like a challenge, a touch of fear too maybe. Maybe this is a test.

Brock shifts his weight onto one arm, reaches between them and grabs Steve's cock, working him on both fronts.

"Come," he grinds out, doesn't know if it's a command or a plea, pumps his hips harder. The hand and the extra force do their jobs, and Steve comes, face pinching tight, hands fisting in the old quilt beneath them.

Brock comes too, rides his orgasm out buried deep, before withdrawing and tucking his gear away. It's not the best fuck they've had, but it makes a succinct point.

 _You're mine and don't fucking forget it._

xxx

He's probably been gone less than ten minutes when he comes back to check in with Jack.

Jack smirks at him.

"Don't look at me like that."

To his credit, Jack doesn't say a word about it. Not even when Steve appears, looking and smelling exactly like he's just been fucked in a rush, which he has.

"What now?" Steve questions, leaning in close and slipping his hand into Brock's. That small gesture feels a lot more like 'I love you' than screwing did. Maybe he's been worrying about nothing after all.

To answer his question, Brock didn't think that far ahead. A lot of it will depend on who decides to come after them, and how much Cap decides he can turn a blind eye to.

"You're the boss," he shrugs. One thing he does know, is that wherever Steve leads, he will follow.


End file.
